惊弓之鸟

jing gong zhi niao: The king loved to hunt, and one day took several of his bodyguards out into the forest to shoot down some birds with their bows and arrows. One bodyguard, a particularly ambitious man looking for a promotion, admonished the others: "What are you doing with those arrows?! There's no need for me to even shoot to bring down a bird. The mere sight of me behind a bow will scare the animal to death." A bird flapped out of a nearby tree, and as the man cocked back his bow to aim his imaginary arrow, the flying bird dropped out of the sky as if it was shot. "There! You see! Scared to death of me!" The bodyguard led the group away as his friend scampered out from behind a bush, blood on his hands from where he had broken the bird's wing a moment before.